Chapter 17: Taking the Pledge

At roll call on Tuesday morning, Senior Master Sergeant Sammy Johns congratulated the weapons flight for their hard work, and he presented his predecessor Dan Baker with a plaque for his tour of duty and Dan got a hearty round of applause from the weapons flight, then Sammy turned it over to Wedge. “The lieutenant wants to talk when you’re done. He wants to brief about holiday safety.”

Wedge just nodded. It was easiest if he kept quiet when the lieutenant was mentioned. “Ok, easy day today,” said Wedge as he briefed his load teams at roll call. “The thirty fifth has End of Runway for the rest of the year,” which brought a lot of cheering. End of the runway was thrilling and exciting, but it was also dangerous to work around running aircraft and arming the weapons just before they took off. “Today we’re going to fly eight, turn four, turn two ... that’s it?” He looked at his schedule. Only fourteen missions total. That’s almost nothing! “Ok, everyone have your tools ready? Davis you’re my truck bitch, Prescott you’re with Sergeant Harkness on Juvat five. Any questions?”

“Yeah,” demanded Heidi. “What happened to Roopy? No one has seen him for over a week.”

Wedge paused for a long moment. He was sure they all heard the rumors; they want to hear it officially from their management. “I will defer that question to Lieutenant Kenosha who knows much more than I do about personnel management. He told me so.” He turned on his heel and said, “they’re all yours sir.” He left the arrogant lieutenant to face a suspicious and angry group of weapons loaders.

Tech Sergeant Bill Harkness followed Wedge into the Weapons office and Wedge almost put his fist through the wall. “He’s going to fuck it up.”

“Damn straight,” said Bill. “But he’s stupid, he’s incapable of not fucking something up.”

The lieutenant was done in record time and walked into the Weapons office and sat down at his desk and started reading the Stars and Stripes Newspaper without saying a word to Wedge and Bill. “Shall we go?” asked Bill.

“We shall,” said Wedge and he and Bill Harkness headed out to get in their trucks. They were almost out the door when they noticed that the weapons loaders were still lined up in roll call formation. When the lieutenant dismissed them, they didn’t move, and the lieutenant didn’t notice. “What’s the deal? Let’s go,” Wedge told the teams.

“What happened to Roopy?” Heidi demanded.

“The lieutenant didn’t mention...?”

“No, and when we asked him he just walked away.”

Wedge looked at these youthful faces. Who was going to be the next one to end their life? These were kids! Lord knows that the Air Force has it easy compared to other branches of the service, but the USAF is also more emotionally isolated than other branches, the teams weren’t as well defined, far too many men and women that were emotionally isolated, even in the thick of battle. This wasn’t the time for dress and cover formations. One of their own is missing. They needed a dad, and it looked like they elected Wedge to fill that position.

“Come here guys, huddle up, close in so I don’t have to repeat this.” When everyone closed in, Wedge said, “Roopy had some problems, and he somehow didn’t see a way out of them, and he took his own life ... I don’t know how, or when or where; I just know that he’s gone and I’m going to miss the little guy. Now look, this place can suck, this base has the highest suicide rate in the Air Force, and I don’t ever want to do this ever again, so I want you all to take a vow, if you need to talk to someone, you turn to whoever is standing next to you right now and say, ‘can I talk?’ Can we do that? Can we vow to turn to each other if we have problems? And if someone turns to us can we listen?”

When there was some murmuring about dealing with suicide, Bill Harkness said, “You don’t have to be an expert on shit, just listen to your brother, that’s all it takes sometimes, and if you have a problem and you can’t find someone to talk to, you come to me or Wedge any time, day or night.”

“Then we get to talk to Roxie!” said Nate Prescott, which caused nervous laughter.

“Fuck you Nay-than,” said Wedge, which cause more relaxed laughter. “Bill’s right, he and I are here for you and I’m going to hold you guys to this pledge, we have to watch out for each other, because ain’t no one else going to do it. Also, I want everyone here to call home this weekend...”